Childhood Trauma

My memories lost to dissociation come from having experienced prolonged traumatic abuses as a child. I developed the protective reflex of dissociation at an early age. Dissociation was my response to frightening, harmful, and unpredictable environments. I learned to tune out and shut down mentally while still being able to respond to my surroundings to function in the moment. I don’t know this because I remember it. I know this because other people hold memories for me. Here is how I began reclaiming my memories lost to trauma-related dissociation.

The effects of childhood sexual abuse can be felt for a long time after childhood is over, even a lifetime, if left untreated. I have found that to be true for me, as well as many others I know who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from childhood sexual abuse. I recently read a book called, Hungry for Touch, A Journey from Fear to Desire, by Laureen Peltier that is an excellent example of how childhood trauma can cause PTSD symptoms much later in life. The book also shows how perseverance in treatment can bring healing from the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse.

Recognizing the signs of unresolved trauma can be tricky. Sometimes people who are having difficulties enter therapy without even knowing that they have suffered the trauma that is causing disruptions in their daily lives. The very nature of trauma lends itself to that. Often, when a person goes through a traumatic event, there is some degree of dissociation that happens and the person essentially “blocks out” all, or part, of the event, so his or her awareness of the trauma isn’t accurate, making diagnosis difficult. However, there are some common signs of unresolved trauma that you can look for.

Three years ago this month I joined the HealthyPlace blogging team by creating this blog. I did so because I wanted to write about symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and what it takes to heal. This was a personal mission: I am a PTSD survivor who struggled for almost 30 years before launching a healing rampage that led me to freedom. And now, while I’m sad to do it, I must say goodbye to Trauma! A PTSD Blog.

Six months ago I was in the intensive care unit (ICU) with sepsis. When I came out, my brain was significantly impaired. I couldn’t read, write or speak fluently. I’m in my 40s and suddenly everything I depended on about myself in terms of being able to communicate both personally and professionally had become enormously dysfunctional. I worried I’d never be the same.

When the neurologist and my physician visited my hospital room, I expressed how frightened I was that my brain was going to be changed forever. Immediately, the physician put my fears to rest.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine,” he said. “If you were younger – if you were a child – we’d have more to be concerned about. The brain continues its original development up to the age of twenty-five. If this trauma to your brain had happened during that timeframe we wouldn’t be able to guarantee anything. But you’re old enough so that your neural networks have fully developed. All of your regular neural functions should come back within six months.”

He was right. Slowly, all of my reading, writing and speaking skills have returned. But what happens to people traumatized at a younger age? New research about childhood bullying further proves that the impact of what happens during those crucial years of brain development can last well into adulthood.

If you are living with unresolved trauma memory, whether or not it’s posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or dissociative identity disorder (DID), you will almost surely bewilder people some of the time. We both know you want this not to happen, but, as is surely obvious to us, you have little or no choice in the matter, other than to avoid triggers to the extent that you know them and can anticipate them. The real problem here is that you can’t avoid all triggers. So, you will bewilder and maybe even frighten people a certain amount of the time.

Does harsh physical punishment of children have any lasting physical disease consequences? Children have been surviving childhood, irrespective of childhood trauma, for a long time. If survival were all we were interested in, we could change the subject at this point. However, we hope for more than this, so we must look more deeply at what we do with the little people in our lives.